FAITH UNDER FIRE

Teacher fired for giving student Bible

'It is so awful, I've never seen something so absurd in my life'

(RADIO.FOXNEWS) — A longtime substitute teacher in Phillipsburg, N.J., has been fired after he shared a Bible verse with a student – and upon request gave the child a Bible.

The Phillipsburg School Board voted Monday night to terminate the employment of Walter Tutka. He was accused of breaking two policies – distributing religious literature on school grounds and another policy that directs teachers to be neutral when discussing religious material.

“It’s unfortunate the Phillipsburg School District chose the path of religious hostility and intolerance against a retired man serving his community and simply responding to a student’s intellectual curiosity,” Hiram Sasser, director of litigation at Liberty Institute, told Fox News. “What’s next – are they going to ban Shakespeare because his plays have Bible quotations?”

Joe Imhof, a close friend of Tutka, was at the school board meeting.

The school board, he told Fox News, was basically telling God to “go to hell.”